THIS JUST IN: He Who Must Be Named

The Toledo Zoo is welcoming a newborn African elephant calf by asking the public to vote for a name from three choices: Lucas, Chuck, and Iain. If your choice gets the most votes, you might win a prize, too. Click here to vote.

Wow that was a tough choice but my first thought was Chuck before i got to the site and after reading what all the choices represented I decided to stick with my original choice so CHuck he sahall be I hope.. Crosses fingers. Did you see his cute as can be video of his first day?

When I was a kid and they had a contest to name a baby elephant in St. Louis, I thought he should be named after something historic that happened at the time he was born. Since elephants live so much longer than many of their other zoo companions, I thought that the elephant could be a living tribute to some historical event at the time.
Alas, the St. Louis calf was an Indian elephant and an Indian couple submitted the name Raja. They made a big deal about the elephant being Indian and the couple being Indian and the name meaning “king” or “prince”….no one seemed to mind that it was also the name of the tiger in Aladdin which already out at the time. Made the name choice seem much less original to me than everyone else seemed to think it was.

I laugh until I cry every. single. time I see this clip. LOVE IT. (My next favorite is Conway & Korman’s take-off on Jaws where Korman plays a Quint like character and Conway talks about his sister who get eaten by sharks because she had a pork chop tied around her neck when she went swimming.)

There’s something red on…is it Mom?…in the lower right hand corner. Depending on when the picture was taken, it could be afterbirth (although he looks a little old for it), or could be paint/juice/crushed fruit/ketchup/jam. As a keeper, it’s always fun to come in the next day after a co-worker used something red for enrichment and didn’t tell you. Oh, and the vet does not like being called down for ketchup. 😀
Or, it could be blood. Cuts and abrasions happen in zoos and in the wild, and I don’t know how tough baby elephant knee skin is when they’re young. May take awhile to toughen up.

I feel that anywhere there is big corporate involvement under the facade of genuine altruistic concern justifies “fist shaking”. Especially with corporations that exploit/destroy the natural habitats of countless animal species. Also, pre- or post-spill is not necessarily relevant to the validity of the comment.